"Dickens's personal taste in dress was always 'loud.' He loved gay
vests, glittering jewelry, showy satin stocks, and everything
rather _prononce_; yet no man had a keener or more unsparing
critical eye for these vulgarities in others. He once gave to a
friend a vest of gorgeous shawl pattern. Soon after, at a party, he
quizzed his friend most unmercifully for his stunning vest,
although he had on him at that very moment its twin brother or
sister, whichever sex vests belong to."
There was an almost morbid restlessness in the man, out of which arose
his habit of excessive walking. When he was writing one of his great
books he could not be away from London streets, and he used to walk
about in them at night for hours at a time, until his body was
completely exhausted; in this way only could he get sleep. When not
composing he loved long country walks, and probably injured his health
much in later life by the great length of these tramps across country.
His restlessness showed itself also in many other ways. The element of
repose was not in him. "My last special feat," he writes once when
unable to sleep, "was turning out of bed at two, after a hard day,
pedestrian and otherwise, and walking thirty miles into the country to
breakfast."
The story is told, too, of a night spent in private theatricals,
following a very laborious day for Dickens, and of his being so much
fresher than any of his companions that towards morning he jumped
leap-frog over the backs of the whole weary company, and was not willing
to go to bed even then. His animal spirits were really inexhaustible,
and this was the great unfailing charm of his companionship. He never
drooped or lagged, but was always alert, keen, and ready for any
emergency. Out-of-door games he entered into with great hilarity, and
was usually the youngest man in the party. There was a positive sparkle
and atmosphere of holiday sunshine about him, and to no man was the word
"genial" ever more appropriately applied.
He carried an atmosphere of good cheer with him in person as he did in
his books, and was fond of the sentiment of joviality; wrote, indeed, a
great deal about feasting, but was really abstemious himself, though he
liked to brew punch and have little midnight suppers with his friends.
Yet at these same suppers he ate and drank almost nothing, though he
furnished the hilarity for the whole party.
His powers of microscopic observation have seldom been equalled. As
Arthur Helps said of him, he seemed to see and observe nine facts while
his companion was seeing the tenth. His books are full of the results of
this accurate observation. Comparatively little in them is invention;
the major part of everything is description of something he has seen and
noted. When he was engaged in reporting, among eighty or ninety
reporters, he occupied the very highest rank, not merely for accuracy in
observing, but for marvellous quickness in transcribing. His wonderful
ability as an actor is known to all. Probably he would have been the
greatest comedian of his day if he had not been one of its greatest
writers. His love for the theatre was an absorbing passion. He was quite
as good a manager as actor, and could bring order out of the chaos of
rehearsals for private theatricals, as no other man has ever been known
to do. Carlyle, who was one of the keenest observers of men our time has
produced, said: "Dickens's essential faculty, I often say, is that of a
first-rate play-actor." Macready also gave it as his opinion that
Dickens was the only amateur with any pretensions to talent that he had
ever seen.
Among the weaknesses of his character were his love of display, which
amounted to ostentation sometimes; his fear of being slighted; his
vanity, which was prodigious, and a certain hardness, which at times
amounted to aggressiveness and almost to fierceness. The displays of
this latter quality were very rare; but they left an ineffaceable
impression upon all witnesses.
The only political questions which deeply moved him were those social
problems to which his sympathy for the poor had always directed his
attention,--the Poor Law, temperance, Sunday observance, punishment and
prisons, labor and strikes. But that he much influenced the legislation
of his country by his writings, no man can doubt. In religion he was a
Liberal. Born in the Church of England, we are told by Professor Ward
that he had so strong an aversion for what seemed dogmatism of any kind,
that for a time--in 1843--he connected himself with a Unitarian
congregation, and to Unitarian views his own probably continued during
his life most nearly to approach.